CLASS OF 1925
Since the contribution of our last literary masterpiece to the ALUMNI MAGAZINE, the following news items have drifted in:
We were sorry to hear of Clarence Morrison's recent incarceration in the Lawrence General Hospital over the Christmas season. His trouble, as we understand it, was just a little matter of acute appendicitis and bronchial pneumonia, with ensuing complications of abscesses and a minor head operation. However, we received a letter from him the other day, wishing to be remembered to the gang, so apparently Morry is now in the convalescent list.
Cliff Hill has just finished his book, referred to in our last issue, and is now at the Broadmore Hotel, Connecticut Avenue, Washington, D. C.
Hod Wellman is in Jamestown, N. Y., building Colonial houses. We hear he is doing a real job on the housing problem. Hod has a son and heir, aged two.
Bob Bingham is lending his able support to the well-known firm of Warren, Howe, and Wilson, of Manchester, N. H., assisting them in handling the affairs of the Boston and Maine Railroad.
Frank Hershey is in the new business department of the Marine Trust Company, Buffalo, N. Y., as an emissary of bigger and better business.
We get it straight from Ken Hill that Bus Annis is now assistant manager of the Hotel Winsor, Montreal Valuable dope for the anti-prohibition paraders. Bus is married and has a 6-year-old daughter.
Rod Jones is also living in Montreal, I understand. Rod is married and has a young son.
And while we are talking of hotels, managers, etc., don't overlook Ed Griffin, who is supervising things in general at the Copley Plaza in Boston. Ed guarantees flawless service for the most exacting '25ers, so bear it in mind.
Eddie Blake is still coaching and teaching English at the Rumson School, Rumson, N. J., which institution is run by Gene Clark's brother. Eddie is also running for the 8.A.A., and in the opening meet of the indoor season in New York on January 3, at the K. of C. games he won the special 500 in 1:01 2/5. From those who claim to be in the know, it is predicted that this year Eddie should surpass his brilliant record of last season.
If any of you are ever in the vicinity of Harrisburg, Pa., be sure to look up Brad Eoss. He has not seen any '25 men for some time and is storing up something in the nature of a reunion for the next one who stops off there. Brad is a foreman in the bridge shop of the Bethlehem Steel Co. at Steelton, Pa. His shop made the Longview Bridge in Washington, which may be O.K. from a structural point of view but is a damned menace to air travel, since we almost flew into it in the fog last September.
Nort Canfield has joined the ranks of the air-minded. He has recently returned from a flying trip to Panama and Central America with a fellow doctor. It is rumored that the revolutionists had covetous eyes on their plane—a Pitcairn biplane with a Wright J 5 motor—and that Nort and party left for home at just about the right time. And by the way, Nort is making quite a name for himself caring for the lame, the halt, and the blind in and around Ann Arbor, Mich.
And that reminds us to report that Al Carter is now a full-fledged eye specialist and is located at the Massachusetts School of Optometry, 168 Massachusetts Ave., Boston.
Our observer in Buffalo reports that Newt Tobey comes to town occasionally in the course of his duties. Newt has gone in for insurance in a rather large way. He sells insurance to dairies and covers the entire state of New York.
Art Smith dropped in on us in Boston the other day while home for the Christmas holidays. He returned a day or two ago to Toledo to resume his duties with the Hettrick Mfg. Co. of that city, where he helps direct the manufacture of their canvas products.
Bill McNulty is practicing law in Boston, and manages to pay the rent on an office in the Tremont Building, which, we pause to comment, is something, with things as they are today.
We received a letter the other day from Stub Dwinell, who is living an Arabian Nights existence at the American University of Cairo. The document follows, in toto:
"New impressions have come thick and fast since we saw the midnight lights of New York's skyline disappear on August 21. Just a month later, after wandering in Germany and Italy, and with three never-to-beforgotten days at Oberammergau, we left Vesuvius smoking in the distance for things oriental, the American University at Cairo being our goal. Quite a large party of University folk crossed the Mediterranean together, and we were greeted by some fifty members of the staff when our train pulled into Cairo with the sun setting gloriously behind silhouetted palm trees and the faint outlines of the Pyramids on September 20.
"Plans had been made for us to occupy President Watson's apartment while he was to be in America for the year. We did not know what a burden-lifter this was to be with all the complications of setting up a household and its furniture, servant, and language problems. Added to this, the convenience of getting our meals with another member of the staff who lives in the same building leaves us to haunt cabinetmakers' shops at our leisure while acquiring the language—not at our leisure. This is our work for the next two years. Fortunately, we have the advantage of the most modern methods in the School of Oriental Studies at the University, international phonetics, and direct conversation. Besides class work we each have an hour a day with Sheikh Muhammed Nuh. He cannot speak English, but fortunately he has a sense of humor.
"The American colony numbers about 500. One realizes how large it is at such times as the recent University reception to the new American minister, Mr. Jardine. There is an active interdenominational church, an American Men's Club, a Woman's Club, a country club, a splendid English hospital, and modern department stores which carry your favorite tooth paste. The people have been most cordial; teas and dinners have abounded on every hand. We are across the street from the Geological Museum and about five minutes' walk from the Nile and the parks which border it, and from the National Museum which contains, among its wonders, so much of the priceless Tut-Ankh-Amen collection.
"The main building of the University was a pasha's palace, and, like so many buildings of Arabic architecture, is beautiful. There are about 350 students of 17 nationalities gathered here—keen looking fellows. We shouldn't forget the eight co-eds; the decision of a year ago to make the institution coeducational was very significant. Most classes are taught in English, though the University is fostering the best in Arabic, too.
"The night of the first full moon (and how it can shine here!) a party of us took a most romantic felucca ride on the Nile overflow and the next evening was spent under the spell of the Sphinx and the Pyramids. One morning we wandered to the far-famed citadel which overlooks the city and experienced a little slump in our awe when we heard the notes of the Maine Stein Song issuing from within. The Sunday morning which we devoted to visiting the Coptic and native Protestant churches was most interesting, the former being a degenerated form of the early Christian church with much curious flubdub. The latter we found far beyond our expectations, splendidly housed and nativedirected congregations numbering from 150 to 500. A morning was spent at the Superior Court, where we went to listen in on the hearing of an appealed case involving a local Egyptian doctor who made too good a public address on women's rights at the University.
"The feminine side of the house, at least, has gloried in the indescribably quaint bazaars in the old section of the city, where one may go and sip Persian tea with some solicitous merchant and revel in old copper, bubble glass, leather, rugs, and old and new jewelry. After a trip to the modern business section we sometimes return, feeling that the city is not so much different from home after all, and then a glance out of our window reveals some strange sight—perhaps a villager who has led his water buffalo into town and arrived at the Geological Museum just in time for his afternoon siesta, so to bed he goes in the shade of the rubber trees of the Shara Sheikh Rihan while the buffalo stands patiently by. Perhaps the scene is a weird funeral procession, or we may stumble upon the bowab who guards our door, spreading his prayer rug towards Mecca at sunset. Humanity seems exhaustless here, and much of it rides by on good-natured trotting donkeys, or, if it is commuting from the country, on two-wheeled carts. And some of it rides in Ford cars. Women are breaking away from veil-wearing, and one sees the various stages of this process everywhere.
"There is much blindness here. The combating of this and other evils, social and physical, through clinics, public lectures, posters, and village sanitation are some of the projects in which we are engaged in the Extension Department.
"The days are like New England September now. We are at the most beautiful time of the year—the beginning of the Egyptian spring. It rains only once or twice a year, since the city is really only an irrigated oasis in the desert. One of the joys of life here is the flowers; one can make his home look decked for a wedding for fifty cents—roses, zinnias, snap-dragons, marigold, chrysanthemums, amber, calendula, and cosmos being the common varieties. Huge morning glories climb over the most dejected shacks, and the acacia trees spread their brilliance everywhere.
"One night recently the city was ablaze with elaborate electric lighting and fireworks (government effort!) in honor of King Fuad's return from his summer palace. We happened to be down street when he passed. The street had been cleared for about an hour. A fleet of men on ordinary bicycles heralded his approach. It was painfully undemonstrative; some feeble clapping seemed only to accentuate his unpopularity. Things are tense politically.
"Undoubtedly Christmas will seem strange but we are promised poinsettias in profusion. And in a way we are nearer Christmas than ever, for we look forward to making a pilgrimage to the spot where the Holy Family was sheltered during its flight to Egypt. "November, 1930."
Apparently the Pittsburgh girls have a charm all their own. At least we have heard several brave men and true raving on in this strain, among them one Paul Deisroth, who has recently become engaged to Miss Margaret Smith of the smoky city. Paul himself has been transferred to Buffalo, after three years of work in Pittsburgh.
Bill Beacham is with C. D. Halsey and Co., investment securities, Boston, and, Tibby Marshall is chief statistician with the same company, which probably accounts, in part, for the present state of the market!
MATCHED, HATCHED, andDESPATCHED
Although news is rather slow from Toledo, we hear that the coal business there is on the up and up. At any rate, Hens Jones thinks he can support a wife and his string of polo ponies. Hens was always an optimist. His recent marriage to Miss Katherine Mauk took place in Toledo.
Bill Jenkins was married on January 4 to Miss Pearl Hathaway of Milton, Mass., a Smith graduate. Dick Plummer came up from Delaware to be best man. Incidentally, Dick is in the sales department of the ammonia division of Dupont, in Wilmington. Lew Kimball, Lennie White, and Frosty Howland (adopted '25) as ushers lent grace and fashion to the wedding party. Bill has recently been elected one of the six comprising the legal staff of the General Electric in Schenectady. As the others are all more or less old-timers, Bill is to be congratulated on the post.
Mr. and Mrs. Les King announced the arrival of John T. King, 2d, on November 15, 1930. During the infrequent intervals when Les is not pacing the floor with the baby, he sells bonds for the Chase Securities Corporation, 43 Federal St., Boston. We have it officially that he prefers to sell bonds for the Chase Securities Corporation.
Franklin Taylor Osgood, Jr., arrived on December 6, 1930, to exercise some discipline in the Osgood home.
Larry Leavitt put behind him the twofold cares of coaching and teaching at Tabor Academy, Marion, Mass., and with his family spent two enjoyable weeks of the Christmas vacation in Hanover, the lucky dog. Larry reports several interesting evenings spent listening to Bob McKennan's stories of the North Country. As you probably know, Bob spent last year in the interior of Alaska, living with the Indians, studying their history, etc., and has some great yarns to tell. Again we urge all '2sers, the more outlying the better, to send in any bits .of current comments on '25 doings that may reach them.
Secretary, 67 Milk St., Boston
